BIM – Building Information Modeling

Diablo Plumbing’s building information modeling (BIM) strategy is fully integrated with our design, building, maintenance, service & repair divisions. We have created a streamlined process that shares information & improves collaboration during the design, construction, & maintenance of your building. By using this strategy, we create a complete & accurate 3D model of your plumbing system. This model allows the entire project team to review the building before ground is even broken. This strategy identifies potential collisions, exploring design alternatives, possible pre-fabrication opportunity’s, as well as time and cost savings for construction. It’s a combination of these features that ensures faster delivery and a better built facility. To achieve this goal & maximize the benefits of working with Diablo Plumbing, we focus on the following key components as our strategy:

People – Diablo Plumbing’s BIM design and solutions stands out through our experience and resources, including leading in design, constructability, coordination & leadership throughout the entire process. The engineer on record provides us technical leadership, while we bring constructability and our knowledge into the design.

Process – By the use of a 3D model to achieve both design and fabrication, Diablo Plumbing will establish a single source for all project plumbing information. To support this method, we have integrated our design-coordination and prefabrication resources as well as our internal workflow. The results are exceptional solutions, collaborative and well-informed team members, fully coordinated facilities, fabrication ready models, and a streamlined workflow that produces real and actionable intelligence for the entire team.

Technology – The use of technology is a critical component of our BIM strategy. Our 3D modeling, coordination and fabrication software is based on several Autodesk products. We have also developed many tools and practices to improve interoperability with other modeling solutions as well. Expanding our use of data sharing and cloud computing has allowed us to leverage our talented workforce across all our disciplines.

Our BIM Services

Diablo Plumbing offers a complete list of BIM services that include but not limited to:

Engineering AssistDesign– We work alongside Engineers to collaborate in the design process for practical and efficient Plumbing systems.

Prototype Modeling – Assist clients in turning ideas into 3D models that can be reviewed, modified, and consequently fabricated

The History Building Information Modeling – BIM

There are at least two reasons that Building Information Modeling (BIM) processes are determining the winners and leaders in both the plumbing design and contracting markets: BIM Mandates (Public & Private) and BIM’s Core Support Digital Design, Construction & Maintenance Processes. BIM Mandates require all project members to use BIM and show proof that members can meet the BIM competency requirements –to join the project team. Several trending and more efficient MEP design, fabrication and construction processes, depend on using the BIM process.

Early BIM Mandates – Public owners and big projects (2001-2006)

Public (Federal, State) design and construction projects created many of the first BIM-mandated projects. Mandates stipulated that all project team members must use the same BIM software for designing and constructing the building. Upon completion of construction, the as-built BIM files would be turned over to the public facility owner’s FM Department.

Public BIM-mandates began delivering these business values to the design and construction team:

Basic benefits of better coordinated construction document sets
2. Time-saving benefits from a more collaborative, integrated design and construction team
3. Simulation and phasing of a project’s construction resources and processes
4. Functional, as-built construction models that served the owners’ FM Department’s roles of facility management, operations, and maintenance

BIM Mandates Mature – Project firms and private owners (2007-present)

Design and construction project firms have both public and private facility owner clients. The BIM benefits achieved from their public projects were adapted to their private projects. The BIM process and team members became a competitive force for improving overall design documentation, reducing construction time and cost over-runs while improving client satisfaction.

Project firms began building cost and time-saving BIM-based processes that made their design and construction processes more efficient. If the team wanted to achieve the benefits (financial, time and quality) of using BIM; all project members needed to be using BIM processes. Team members using CAD and/or paper processes clearly disrupted the efficiency of a BIM process.

Their BIM dependence began defining BIM mandates. Basically, all project participants, from design through construction; must demonstrate a proven record of BIM literacy, proficiency and competency.

Here are just three ways a project firm may measure team members’ BIM competency:

Provide a portfolio of your past BIM-project deliverables.
• References. Who can vouch for your successful BIM-project team collaboration?
• Who are your BIM-qualified project leaders and what are their credentials?

More facility owners are contractually mandating BIM deliverables for use in their FM Department. Design and construction firms that lack BIM competency face the easy choice of being disqualified from the project team.

How can architects, engineers, contractors and subcontractors participate on these projects; without BIM competency and proficiency? They can’t.

Each year Building Design + Construction Magazine updates its “Giants 300 Ranking Lists” of the nation’s architectural, engineering and contracting firms. More than two dozen lists are broken into three categories:

(1) Rankings by Discipline (2) Rankings by Specialty and (3) Rankings by Building Sector.

One list, the BIM Report List, is found under “Rankings by Specialty” and includes a list of firms for each discipline that are using BIM. These firms have adopted and integrated BIM mandates into their global business structure.

BIM for construction now exceeds BIM for design

Based on McGraw-Hill’s 2012 survey, “Business Value of BIM in North America,” the construction market sector is the leader for using BIM processes. The survey reports that growth of BIM has created opportunities to integrate BIM with several other project delivery processes. Together, they’re helping the project team to reduce construction time, improve project quality, provide labor savings, while increasing worker safety.

BIM serves as a core process for these leading project delivery processes. Processes are:

The Design Build Institute of America (DBIA) reports the design-build process represents 40 percent of the U.S. construction market. In 2005, design-build represented 30 percent of the U.S. construction market. Fifty percent of design-build projects are valued at over $10 million. D-B projects are increasingly dependent on using BIM to drive plumbing and HVAC prefabrication to meet project deadlines and budget.

HVAC and plumbing subcontractors incorporate BIM components into their prefabrication software, which spools the models and data to sheet metal and pipe fabrication equipment. MEP systems racks are prebuilt offsite and then trucked to the facility. Skanska defines this process as multi-trade prefabrication (MTP) that is completed in offsite construction facilities (OCF).

BIM software verifies there is enough room for all MEP systems to “fit” into a space; like a hallway ceiling. However, it may be impossible to efficiently fit all the required tradespeople and equipment into the space to install the systems.

MEP BIM components include “clearance boxes” around MEP equipment service areas to maintain “open space” around those areas for future access by the operations and maintenance department.

BIM helps create a bill of materials (BOM) of parts and fabricated components. The BOM with assembly drawings will be sent to the contractor’s fabrication floor. There, the MEP systems racks are more easily and safely assembled on the ground using a manufacturing methodology. Tradespeople are working in an environmentally controlled building that uses “lean and green” manufacturing processes. The systems are inspected, tested, labeled and tagged prior to being shipped to the construction site for final installation.

The BIM End Game- Operations and maintenance

The Mayo Clinic and the Carolina Healthcare System are just two facility owners that are transitioning the integration of their facility BIM files into their operations and maintenance systems.

The BIM file of a tankless water heater has a clearance box (in red) that represents the clearance required to open the door to service the heater once it has been installed. Construction firms, Gilbane and Mortenson, are just two firms that are contractually delivering as-built model files with embedded clearance boxes around installed equipment.

Navisworks file-neutral BIM viewer

Plumbing engineers and MEP contractors use BIM authoring software to create BIM files for design, prefabrication and construction. Contractors also use a BIM file-viewing tool called Navisworks. It is a “file-neutral” BIM file viewer that allows contractors to view BIM model files from several BIM authoring software packages.

Project BIM files may have been created in Autodesk Revit, Bentley MicroStation, ArchiCAD, TEKLA, Vectorworks, AutoCAD 3D or Autodesk Civil 3D file formats. The MEP contractor will link the various BIM files together (HVAC, electrical, architectural and structural) to create a fully coordinated facility model.

Navisworks analyzes the coordinated facility model and verifies that the MEP content is not interfering with other building components.

For example, Navisworks verifies the sprinkler heads are not occupying the same space as a light fixture. It verifies the hot water pipe is not running through a column. Both of these examples help coordinate the plumbing design and construction process “in the computer” prior to onsite construction.

Navisworks provides this automated “interference detection” between the trades models while providing 3D mark-up tools for enhanced communication between the designer and contractor.

We are no longer discussing if the BIM process is feasible for plumbing designers and contractors. The leaders are progressing with joint BIM coordination agreements between the plumbing engineer and plumbing contractor. While the plumbing engineer uses BIM for model-based systems design, the plumbing contractor uses BIM for model-based prefabrication. Their early-design collaboration seeks to reduce unnecessary modeling by the plumbing engineer so that more of their modeling remains useable for the plumbing contractor to take into fabrication.

Design-build, prefabrication, integrated project delivery and lean construction processes are all integrating the BIM process. As the total of successful BIM-based projects has grown from hundreds to thousands of projects, BIM continues to expand its core role for multiple project delivery models